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While shooting was legal, DNR has urged hunters to exercise restraint when it comes to radio-collared bears.

ELY, MINN. — A hunter has shot and killed a well-known research bear near Ely, the North American Bear Center said this weekend.

Dot, who was 13 years old, was shot Friday while wearing a radio collar with colorful ribbons, researchers Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield wrote for an online update for the Bear Center

“Dot was radio-tracked longer than any other bear in the study, beginning with her life in the den with her radio-collared mother Blackheart,” they wrote. “Dot had a great, gentle personality and was a favorite of many who got to see her in the course of her 13 years.”

Dot got her own radio collar when she was 1 year old.

It is legal to shoot a radio-collared bear in Minnesota, but the Department of Natural Resources urges hunters to use restraint.

“These animals provide long-term data on reproduction and habitat use that is invaluable for bear management across the state,” DNR bear research biologist Dave Garshelis said in a statement before the hunting season. But the DNR says officials recognize that a hunter may not always see a bear’s radio collar or ear tags.

The Duluth News Tribune reported that Dot was the second radio-collared bear to be shot during this bear season, which opened Sept. 1; a bear researchers had named Aster was shot and wounded Sept. 5. Rogers said he expects Aster will recover.

In Dot’s case, Rogers and Mansfield said that Friday afternoon, “her GPS locations showed her signal moved quickly from the forest to the town of Ely. We drove to Ely and located the radio-collar in the conservation officer’s truck awaiting delivery to the DNR office in Tower and eventual return to us.”

Rogers was told Dot was killed “in a hunting situation,” the researchers said.

The DNR did not immediately return messages seeking comment Sunday.

Hunters have killed least nine of Rogers’ radio-collared bears over the years, including two in 2010.

Earlier this year, the DNR revoked Rogers’ permits, and he was ordered to stop placing collars on bears and stop putting cameras in dens. But there was an appeal to an administrative law judge, and a temporary compromise allows researchers to have collars on up to 10 bears.

With Dot’s death, the bear center has nine collared bears, including Aster..

As the new DNR commissioner, I have faced a dizzying array of issues during my first six weeks on the job. The DNR's scope of authority ranges from forestry and mining to fishing and camping, and each area has issues where I sometimes must make an unpopular decision.

I recently made a tough decision on an issue involving a lot of public emotion, but one requiring me to balance research desires against pragmatism and private interests against public good.

The DNR received a request from bear researcher Mr. Lynn Rogers to make it illegal for licensed hunters to kill bears fitted with radio collars. Radio collars, which are attached around the neck of an animal, are frequently used to study bear habits. Mr. Rogers made the request because he was concerned his bear-research project would be compromised if collared bears were legally harvested by licensed hunters. DNR bear researchers use similar collars, so I understand Mr. Roger's concern.

This was not a decision I came to easily, but I ultimately concluded that protecting collared bears through DNR rule is not desirable. Here are my reasons:
◾While Mr. Rogers' research is popular and interesting, it is not essential to managing bear populations in Minnesota. As a matter of policy, our job at the DNR is to manage entire populations of wild animals, and singling out individual bears for protection is not a policy I support.
◾Making it illegal to harvest radio-collared bears would be largely unenforceable. Most bears are taken in low light at dawn and dusk. It is very likely a hunter could fail to distinguish a marked bear. In this case, when markings are hard to see, a hunter could easily miss seeing them and accidentally kill a collared bear. We don't want to prosecute people for honest mistakes.
◾It is nearly impossible to prove a crime. Even if markings are visible, it would be difficult for a conservation officer to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a hunter could see the collars. Also, a truly guilty party could remove collar flagging surreptitiously and further argue they were not visible.
◾Wildlife belongs to all Minnesotans. It is a public resource, and wild game animals are lawful to harvest under state law. Placing a collar and flagging on a game animal shouldn't "reserve" it for one individual or group. Even in the name of research, individuals or groups shouldn't be allowed to preempt legal harvest. It sets a terrible precedent for usurpation of public resources.
◾This issue is properly a legislative one. The DNR manages populations and doesn't set regulations regarding individual animals. If society believes individual animals should be protected, I believe the legislature is best suited to make that change to reflect the will of the people.

The DNR uses radio collars to study bears. The agency loses research bears annually to legal harvest, so our researchers understand the issue. We recognize, however, that in a wild population of wild animals, hunting is a function of their life cycle in a human-dominate landscape.

The DNR works diligently to make hunters aware that bears with radio collars are important for research. We will continue to request hunters not to shoot them.

We will also work with Mr. Rogers, local communities, bear guides and hunters in our public education efforts to protect radio-collared bears. We have received a high level of cooperation from this voluntary effort.

The bears are marked with large colorful ear tags or colorful streamers.

DNR researchers are monitoring about 30 radio-collared black bears, most of them in northwestern Minnesota, especially near Thief Lake Wildlife Management Area and the Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge. Additional radio-collared bears reside in and around the Chippewa National Forest, Camp Ripley, Cloquet Forestry Station and Voyageurs National Park.

Bear research also is being conducted between Ely and Tower near the Eagles Nest chain of lakes in northern St. Louis County.

“Hunters near these areas should be especially vigilant for these valuable research bears,” said Dave Garshelis, DNR bear research biologist. “These animals provide long-term data on reproduction and habitat use that is invaluable for bear management across the state.

“We’re asking that if hunters see ear tags or a collar on a bear, they refrain from shooting it,” Garshelis said. “Researchers have invested an enormous amount of time and expense in these individuals.”

Many of the collars have GPS units that collect and store data, which is downloaded by DNR researchers when they visit the bears in their dens. Long-term records of individual bears have been the cornerstone of information that helps the DNR monitor and manage the bear population, Garshelis said.

DNR officials recognize that a hunter may not be able to see a radio collar or ear tags in some situations. For this reason, taking a bear with a radio collar is legal unless the bear is accompanied by a researcher who has identified the bear to the hunter as a research animal.

Photos of some collared research bears are available on the DNR website.

Any hunters who shoot collared bears should call the DNR Wildlife Research Office in Grand Rapids at 218-327-4146 or 218-327-4133.

Heck I thought that was a band like they put on ducks....who gives a flock what the DNR thinks you should or shouldn't do. If it's not against the law their opinion and your opinion of what he shoots should be absolutely irrelevant to him. I assure you it would be to me...

Seems the real problem might be with the one who thought that this was a story. Seems like it's a regular occurrence based on the article. It's legal. The guy was not cited. I agree that if they really want to study the life cycle of wild bears they should want hunters to treat them like all others and harvest on whatever legal grounds they would normally choose. Otherwise, they'll just get a bunch of false data. Media making another non-story a story and not very clearly written at that.

we can thank that researcher for making the bear more noticeable with the ribbons and crap!!!!! The hunting of this animal can be part of the research......wild bears are not domesticated animals collars, ribbons, names ect. They make this story even more animal rights worthy by naming the damn thing....really pulls at the heart strings ya know

I'd bet that the hunter in question wishes that he had shown some restraint....now that the media got ahold of this story. He's probably pretty embarrassed.

If they don't want them shot, then they can convince the DNR to protect collared animals. That hasn't been done in MN or most other places that I am aware of. In WI, they simply remind you you can shoot collared deer, etc. So while these animals provide research data, protecting them from the perils of the wild, i.e. hunters, would yield a certain level of false data, wouldn't it?